Omron to Acquire Motion Control Firm Delta Tau
KYOTO, Japan, July 31, 2015 — Industrial automation firm Omron Corp. plans to a 100 percent stake in Delta Tau Data Systems Inc. of Chatsworth, Calif., maker of motion control systems used in semiconductor and LCD manufacturing.
The deal is expected to close in early September.
Established in 1976, Delta Tau has 178 employees and offices in China, India, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Switzerland and the U.K.
Omron develops image-processing sensors and other input devices, as well as servo drives and...

Zimon Norlin Named Service Manager at Ocean Optics
DUNEDIN, Fla., July 31, 2015 — Ocean Optics Inc. has appointed Zimon Norlin as service and operations manager for Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
Norlin will lead manufacturing, service and logistics in the regional sales office in Ostfildern, Germany, and will be in...

Laser Components Opens Pyro Group Facility
STUART, Fla., July 30, 2015 — Laser Components USA Inc., part of the international Laser Components Group, has announced the opening of its new pyroelectric detector production facility.
One year after acquiring the manufacturing site and the staff of Microwatt...

Physik Instrumente Expands to Silicon Valley
SAUSALITO, Calif., July 29, 2015 — PI (Physik Instrumente) LP has expanded its reach to Silicon Valley.
The company, a subsidiary of Physik Instrumente (PI) GmbH & Co. KG of Germany, is headquartered in Auburn, Mass., and said its new facility in Sausalito, Calif., will be...

New 'Smart Window' Materials Allow Faster Switching
AUSTIN, Texas, July 28, 2015 — Nanocrystal-based windows that selectively block different wavelengths of sunlight could help keep homes cool but still well lit — or warm but dark.
The technology has taken a major step toward commercialization because it blocks up to...

Lasers Transform Drug into More Useful Form
SUITA, Japan, July 28, 2015 — Exposure to laser light may make one type of anti-inflammatory drug more effective.
Researchers at Osaka University used lasers to induce selective crystallization of the metastable form of indomethacin. The exposed drug remains in that form...

Trumpf Sales, Orders Climb 5%
DITZINGEN, Germany, July 27, 2015 — Sales and orders increased by approximately 5 percent in the last fiscal year at Trumpf GmbH + Co. KG.
The company said its preliminary calculations showed total sales of €2.723 billion (about $3.02 billion), compared to €2.584...

Plasmonic Device Achieves 90-GHz Switching
DURHAM, N.C., July 27, 2015 — Able to flip on and off 90 billion times a second, a new plasmonic light emitter could form the basis of optical computing.
"This is something that the scientific community has wanted to do for a long time," said Duke University professor...

Light Polarization Reveals Chiral Side of Silicon
PHILADELPHIA, July 24, 2015 — Polarized light can bring out an unexpected electrical property in silicon, potentially unlocking new possibilities for computing.
University of Pennsylvania researchers examining a silicon device caused current to flow in one direction by...

IDS, Stemmer Imaging to End Machine Vision Partnership
OBERSULM, Germany, July 24, 2015 — Industrial camera manufacturer IDS Imaging Development Systems GmbH and Stemmer Imaging Ltd. of Tongham, England, have decided to end their partnership.
The companies said the market landscape for industrial cameras has changed in recent years...

Microlasers Track Cells from the Inside
ST. ANDREWS, Scotland, July 24, 2015 — Embedded microlasers could allow scientists to track and distinguish between large numbers of cells simultaneously.
Two laboratories have published results independently, each showing that cells can absorb whispering gallery mode resonators...

Saki America Relocates from San Jose to Fremont
FREMONT, Calif., July 22, 2015 — Chip inspection firm Saki America Inc. has relocated from San Jose to Fremont.
The new office will serve as a sales, training, service and applications support center for Saki's 2D and 3D automated optical, solder paste and x-ray inspection...

Microlens Array Spawns Massive Microscope Image
CAMBRIDGE, Mass., July 21, 2015 — A new multispectral device is said to have produced the largest microscope image ever, combining 13 color channels gathered by thousands of microlenses into a nearly 17-gigapixel picture.
Able to rapidly process very large amounts of...

NASA Awards $15M HSI Contract to Teledyne Brown Engineering
THOUSAND OAKS, Calif., July 21, 2015 — Teledyne Brown Engineering Inc. will integrate a hyperspectral imaging (HSI) instrument into a new Earth observation platform for the International Space Station under a $15 million contract with NASA.
The Multi-User System for Earth Sensing...

Optical Glucose Sensor on Commercial Path
LEEDS, England, July 17, 2015 — A University of Leeds spin-off company is seeking to commercialize an optical glucose sensor that could make finger-prick blood tests unnecessary for people with diabetes.
Glucosense Diagnostics Ltd. intends to make tabletop and wearable...